“When Ben tells the story, he likes to say it was love at first sight for him. However, the feeling was not mutual. He likes to tell our daughters that he eventually won me over with his persistence because I found him to be annoying for the first six months we worked together,” said Spanish teacher Caitlin VandenWyngaard.

She and her husband Ben met while working at a banquet hall called the Darboy Club in Appleton. Caitlin worked in the kitchen preparing food for weddings and the different buffets they offered.

Meanwhile, Ben was hired to help wash dishes and roast chicken. Caitlin’s boss decided it would be a good idea if she trained all the new kitchen hires, so she ended up training him on the different jobs around the kitchen. 

Ben would purposely make up excuses to come over to Caitlin’s work station to talk to her.

The conversation was not really a conversation, according to Mrs. VW.  “It was more random questions like ‘Where does this pan go?’  or ‘Where is the extra lettuce in the fridge?’” 

His future wife found this rather annoying because most of the time the answers to his questions were very obvious. 

“We have been together for about 20 years and married for 14 of those years,” said the Spanish teacher.

Caitlin would have to say that the most special thing in their marriage is their sense of humor and how they always manage to make each other laugh. 

Ben likes to replace her ice water with salt water, and she enjoys sneaking up on him and scaring him. 

“He scares rather easily, so I sometimes have too much fun lurking around the house and jumping out at him. We both are good sports as we know it’s all in fun. Overall, I think our personalities do a good job of balancing each other out,” she said.

Both were raised Catholic, and growing up, Caitlin attended a Catholic grade school while Ben attended a public school.  She also spent a lot of time with her grandmother and prayed the rosary daily, cultivating a powerful devotion to the Blessed Mother.

On the other hand, Ben tends to feel closest to God when he is able to be out in the woods and in God’s creation. 

Caitlin said, “We both have our own forms of prayer, and we respect each other’s views.”